


A Problem Like Dave

by yuffiehighwind



Series: An Eternity in Cheese Country [38]
Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Dual Identity, F/M, Gen, Milwaukee, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-01
Updated: 2004-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuffiehighwind/pseuds/yuffiehighwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deimos always wondered why everyone thought he and Strife were so alike. There's no longer any simple answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Problem Like Dave

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the 'fic series "An Eternity in Cheese Country," and here's why - after they were killed by Callisto and Xena, the souls of Strife, Discord, and Deimos were reincarnated in the late 20th century into three humans named Steve, Veronica, and Dave.

So this was the pad. The place. The place to be. The lair, the cave, the club, the fortress, the....

So  _this_  was Strife's room.

 _"Steve's room,"_  Deimos could hear Discord correct him, in his head.  _Steve's_ lampshade. It was  _Steve's_  bedspread. It was  _Steve's_ stack of porn. Hold on...stack of porn?

Deimos resisted the urge to rifle through his cousin's belongings and remained in the doorway, just...looking. He looked, then, at the previously looked-at bedspread. Messy. Rumpled. Slept in. Or had more happened here? 

Ooh, there was a thought. 

And then doubt. And... _disturbing_ imagery. Then again, Deimos had often wondered how others perceived him. What did he look like belting out off-key tunes in the shower? In battle? To the dying? In the middle of fucking? Fucking _himself?_

Then, too, came the realization that he hadn't seen his cousin in centuries. Not since he'd arrived in -  _ugh_ \- Wisconsin had they crossed paths. Deimos could recall only once meeting cousin Strife. Ares stroking the god's raven hair like a cat, and unsettling eyes boring into him. 

Did  _his_  eyes look that way?

What was he like? Discord was fucked up. She nearly always called Deimos the wrong name _(*his* name)_ during sex. Both she and Ares had agreed, back home, he was much like his cousin. So much so that it was uncanny, discomfiting, yet hysterically funny, to them. He used to protest, scream, cry and refuse, but everyone agreed. It was like some kind of cruel joke.

Discord talked about living with the now-transformed Strife and how he was a lot more responsible than Deimos could ever dream of being while still being a no-good slacker. She scoffed at the whole concept of Dimitri, the ex with the dough, but couldn't explain the origins of the Apartment, so she rarely spoke of the man. Deimos thought maybe she resented him for performing such magic - on Strife - so beyond either of them.

Because the way she now described him was not _at all_ how she had described him centuries earlier. He was....subdued, she said. Deimos could tell this pissed her off, yet when he himself was madcap, that pissed her off too. It was more like some fight over substitute sugar, or something. That analogy was going somewhere, he knew it. Deimos liked to re-create battles with the sugar packets at diners.

"What are you doing?" asked the princess herself. 

Deimos didn't turn around. His eyes continued scanning the room. 

"Just....standing."

He could picture her, arms akimbo, glaring at the back of his head. She usually kept the door shut when Strife/Steve wasn't there. 

"Standing?"

"And...looking."

He heard her let out an annoyed puff of air. 

"Well stop looking."

He turned to look at her instead. Long midnight hair draped past her shoulders, some hanging over one eye. Straight, because the teased look had gone out with togas. She had a small, v-shaped face. Not conventionally attractive, but...catlike? Pale white skin; full red lips. Nah, that was just the makeup. _(She always kept at least one stick at the bottom of her bag. Old habits died hard.)_  Her petite frame, cased in skintight jeans, was dwarfed by a bulky, black sweater. Eyes sharp as daggers. She was a cliché, she was beautiful, and she was fucking him. 

Maybe not a total cliché. Her eyebrows were un-waxed and hairy, regrown for lack of instant, magical convenience, and blotchy red marks dotted her face, up by her hairline. Bags sunk under her eyes. She was human, now. No thick mascara this era. Just those blood lips.

He approached her and placed a single light kiss on her forehead before exiting the room. _"David,"_ she would call him, or "Dave," when she remembered. Sometimes she called him his proper name and sometimes called him "Terror." Sometimes the two of them just gave up names altogether. Deimos planned to seek out an answer for why she cried out Steve/Strife when he was inside her. The room left no clues. He'd have to ask the man himself.


End file.
